Fugue
by xenascully
Summary: Tony and McGee are missing. The information that could lead Gibbs to find his agents is locked somewhere in Agent Bishop's mind...
1. Chapter 1

**Fugue**

 **Rated: T**

 **Summary: Tony and McGee are missing. The information that could lead Gibbs to find his agents is locked somewhere in Agent Bishop's mind...**

 **Author Note: Okay so I know it's been a lot of time since I've done...anything here. I'm trying to get back into this. Bear with me. Not sure how long it'll take to make updates.**

 ***~.~***

" _Find Gibbs. Don't hyperventilate,"_ she repeated in her head as she sped down the road toward where they'd last seen Gibbs. Eleanor Bishop's chest stung with the heavy, accelerated beating of her heart. Her cell phone was useless, destroyed by her plummet into the lake with her partners. Much like her phone, Bishop was soaked through and through. It was cold out for April, but freezing was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment.

" _Find Gibbs. Don't hyperventilate."_

It was so loud in her ears, this temporary mantra she kept holding foremost in her thoughts, that when she found Gibbs and screeched the car to a halt beside him, it took a moment to remember what to do after throwing it into park.

Gibbs was heading out of the house that was their current crime scene. As he had thought earlier, the murder hadn't happened in the house. He pulled out his phone to call the rest of his team, but his gaze was drawn upward at the sound of screeching tires in the near distance. Bishop was the driver of the vehicle that stopped beside him. He didn't like the feeling that washed over him when he saw her face. She seemed confused and pale and obviously had at some point fallen into the lake. The real worry hit him when she didn't immediately get out of the car.

He took the few steps forward to reach out and pull the driver's side door open. "Bishop?" he asked sternly, but without disguising his concern.

She looked over and up at him, eyes widening as if she'd just then recalled why she'd hurried over. "Gibbs!" It came out tighter and more raspy than she'd expected, and it jarred her for a moment.

Gibbs knelt down after pushing the door the rest of the way open. "Ellie, what happened?" he asked. "Where's McGee and DiNozzo?" He watched as tears formed in her eyes, her breathing picking up with each passing moment.

"They're gone," she told him, then grunted in pain, doubling over and pressing a hand to her side.

"Gone?" Gibbs questioned as he pulled her hand away to see if she was injured.

"They had guns. They...they shot at us and we fell into the river and...and..." her breath took over, the hyperventilation having won over her mantra as Gibbs discovered that water wasn't the only thing soaking through Bishop's jacket. He pulled out his phone to call for help. "You have...you have to save them," she told him between breaths.

"Where are they?" he asked as he waited for the line to pick up.

"I...I don't know..." she said, and then her eyes began to roll back.

"This is Agent Gibbs with NCIS," he shouted his badge number into the phone as he demanded an ambulance. "We have an agent down! I repeat, we have an agent with a GSW! We need an airbus!"

…

TBC...


	2. Chapter 2

**Author Note: Thanks to everyone for the nice comments! To "guest", if you'd watched NCIS at all in the last two years you'd know who Bishop is. Before making a statement suggesting that _I'm_ doing something wrong, you should check the facts ;)**

 ***~.~***

"How is she, Duck?" Gibbs asked into his cell as he walked the bank of the river that was now swarming with agents.

" _She came through the surgery just fine, Jethro,"_ the M.E. replied. _"The bullet went through and through, missing any vital organs. She has a rather large lump on the back of her head, which I imagine caused her eventual loss of consciousness. I, for one, am certainly glad she got to you before that happened."_

"She say anything?"

" _A great deal, actually. Unfortunately, nothing having to do with the events leading up to her current condition."_

"She told me someone took Tim and Tony, Duck."

" _A memory she likely still held onto before losing consciousness. I'm afraid that the knock she took to the head may have caused her a bit of amnesia."_

Gibbs paused in his steps, closing his eyes as he drew in a breath and released it as slowly as he could manage. He was nauseated. His head hurt, and he rarely ever had a headache, so that was saying a lot. "How bad?" he asked finally.

" _She seems to remember coming into work this morning as well as grabbing her things as you all left the bullpen to head out to your current location. That's all, before waking up in the recovery room."_

Gibbs ended the call, holding back from tossing the damned thing into the river.

"Jethro!" Vance's voice sounded in the distance behind him, making Gibbs turn to see the director walking toward him. "Any word on Bishop?"

"She's in recovery," he replied blankly. "Doesn't remember anything."

"No sign of McGee and DiNozzo?"

"No sign of anything," he told him. "There's nothing here. No blood, no disturbed brush, no signs of a struggle. Nothing." He ran a frustrated hand down his face.

"Abby's been attempting to trace their phones. Still no luck on that. Their last ping happened back at the original crime scene." Vance paused for a moment and glanced around them. "You sent them here to check out a more likely location for the murder, right?" Gibbs nodded. "No sign of that, either?"

Gibbs' eyes narrowed in thought for a moment. He turned his head to the left looking upstream, then to the right. "Where'd you park your car, Leon?" he asked.

"Back on the road where everyone else is parked right now," he replied. "Why?"

"Bishop got into the car after getting out of the water," he thought aloud. "She'd been shot. There'd be a trail from the water to wherever they'd parked."

"Current's running that way," Vance gestured. "If she fell into the water, she got pulled in that direction before getting out. There's only two designated parking areas near this trail; one up at the head, and the other down before the bend."

"And since there's no blood up here, the car was probably parked downstream."

"Unless they parked on the road like us."

Gibbs shook his head. "Someone would've seen Bishop and called it in. Traffic this time of day, no way they'd miss that. That and there's no blood along the road, either. I checked on my way up here."

"Looks like we should head downstream then," Vance suggested.

"We?" Gibbs asked with a raised brow.

"Last I checked, you have a few temporarily open spots on your team. Figured I might lend a hand..."

*~.~*

"I'm fine, Ducky," Ellie insisted as she dug through the go-bag the doctor had brought in for her.

"On the contrary, you were shot..." Ducky argued.

"Through and through," she reminded him.

"Dragged yourself out of a river," he continued, "And underwent surgery."

"In and out in under an hour. Like I said, I'm fine to get out of here."

"You also suffered a concussion and currently have no recollection of several crucial hours."

Ellie sighed, dropping her hands to the hospital bed she stood beside, her clean clothes in her hands. "Staying here isn't going to help me," she said. "Not to mention that one in twenty-five hospital patients develop health care-acquired infections. Some of which are lethal."

"Eleanor..."

"More importantly, half of our team is missing, and I might be the only person who knows where they might be. I need to try and get my memory back, Ducky, so you can fight me on leaving here or you can save me some cab fare by taking me back to the river I apparently crawled out of before finding Gibbs." With that, she picked up her outfit and headed toward the restroom.

Ducky was silent for a moment, then walked over to the closed restroom door. "I assume you're hoping that seeing this river might trigger your memory," he said.

"I'm hoping to do whatever I can to get my team home safe..."

*~.~*

"This must be it," Vance said, crouched down in the gravel parking area. "Not much blood though."

"She was wet from the river," Gibbs reminded him. "Water diluted what fell here, then dried up. Most of it stayed in her jacket."

"Okay." Vance stood and faced the agent. "She said they'd all been shot, right? So why isn't there more blood? I get they probably weren't shot right here, but there's nothing all the way back up, right?"

"We're missing something," Gibbs replied, mostly to himself, then turned at the sound of another vehicle coming into the parking lot.

"Is that..."

"Bishop," Gibbs finished for him. They waited for the car to pull up, Ducky meeting Gibbs' eyes with a look of apology on his face. He was at the passenger side door as Ducky exited the driver seat.

"She insisted, Jethro..."

"What are you doing, Ellie?" Gibbs asked as he had no choice but to assist her as she pushed up out of the car.

"I'm fine," she told him. "It hurts, but it's not life-threatening. I need to be out here."

Gibbs looked to Ducky for a moment, his face conveying the question of whether or not he should allow this to continue.

"She shouldn't be on her feet for very long," Ducky said. "She needs rest."

"I agree," Gibbs said. Bishop was about to protest. "But if you can remember anything about what happened, we sure could use something right now."

"That's why I wanted to come out here," she replied, moving to walk toward the river's edge. Gibbs followed beside her even though she seemed content to carry herself, though limping with an arm draped around her torso in support of the sutured wound. "I was hoping that..." She paused to draw in a pained breath. "...maybe the smell of the river or the sounds or something...might trigger something."

She stood at the edge, taking deep breaths in hopes of remembering. She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on the sounds around her; the wind, the rushing water... A hand was suddenly on her shoulder and her eyes flew open, unexpectedly struck with an image. It was of Tony. Well, it was nothing at first; just that feeling on her shoulder, and then Tony was in front of her, too close to see properly. There was a loud bang and then she was falling, and then another bang. Her gaze drifted to see Tim falling back...

"Eleanor?" Ducky's voice brought her back to reality, and instead of her missing teammates she saw the doctor and Gibbs beside her, Gibbs' hand on her shoulder trying to ground and support her.

"What is it?" Gibbs asked her knowingly.

Ellie shook her head. "I..." She let out a breath and only then realized that her respiration had become elevated. "I'm not... I heard two shots," she told him. "I think...I think Tony was trying to protect me, but we were all falling."

"Into the river?" Gibbs asked.

"I don't...I'm not sure. I don't remember it clear enough, but given the fact that I was soaked when I got to you, that's probably what happened, yeah."

"Did you see the shooter?" he asked in a calm voice.

"No," she shook her head. "I...I don't think I did. It all happened so fast. Tony...he must've seen something. He saw something and tried to shield me. I...I think... God, Gibbs, I think Tim and Tony were shot and went in the water like I did. So...so why didn't they... How come they didn't get out with me?"

"Maybe they did," Gibbs replied.

"Perhaps further down the river," Ducky added. "Or..."

"Or they didn't," Ellie finished for him, eyes brimming with tears. "What if they didn't?" she asked, looking into her boss's eyes, pleading for an answer that would nullify the theory altogether.

Gibbs eyes, however, scanned the river's edge down as far as he could from where he stood. His agents were out there somewhere. The question was, would they be able to find them before it was to late?

TBC...


	3. Chapter 3

" _My heart bleeds for you, Tony," McGee said sarcastically as they walked along the river's edge._

" _That's not nice," Tony replied with a scowl._

" _Yeah, Tim," Ellie said with a smile. "Statistically there must be a child out there somewhere that doesn't completely hate Tony."_

" _Thank you for your compassion, Bishop," Tony said with equal sarcasm. "Whoa!" He held his arms out to stop his teammates in their tracks as he spotted something in the grass. "Found something." He bent down and picked it up with a plastic bag. "We've got a shell casing," he said as he stood and examined it._

" _Think that's from the gun that shot our sergeant?" McGee asked._

" _He had debris from the river all over him," Bishop said. "It's highly possible that this is where it happened."_

" _So he was shot, fell into the river, and they fished him out and put him in his house?" McGee said. "That doesn't make sense. Why not let him get carried down the river? Gives them a lot more time to get away until the body is found."_

" _Maybe they needed something he had on him," Tony offered._

" _Keys to a safe in his house?" Bishop suggested._

" _Maybe," Tony replied. "Maybe they wanted to make sure they hadn't left a bullet in him."_

" _Maybe they were hoping we wouldn't make the connection to the river?" McGee stated._

" _Oh we'll make the connection," Tony said with a knowing grin as he held the casing up in the light. Then his gaze refocused somewhere in the distance. "Get down!" he yelled, one hand grabbing Ellie's shoulder as he spun in front of her. Something was buzzing behind her._

" _What?" Ellie replied, confused for a moment. Then she heard the gunshot, felt heat in her side and her equilibrium shift. She was falling. Tony shoved her and her head turned toward McGee. Tony's other hand was gripping the younger man's jacket and pulling him down with them..._

 _Then nothing... Nothing but blackness._

"Ellie?" Abby's voice sounded somewhere in the distance, foggy and echoing, yet close by. "Ellie, wake up." Ellie opened her eyes to see the forensic scientist hovering over her. "Are you okay?" Abby asked, concerned. They had all agreed to keep the young agent in their sights until this whole situation was resolved. Whoever had shot them was still out there, and they might know that she'd survived and try to come after her again. Gibbs didn't trust to send her back to her apartment, even with an agent posted. So she'd taken advantage of Abby's futon mattress on the floor of the lab for a bit of rest.

"Yeah," she replied weakly.

"You sounded like you were having a bad dream."

"Yeah I..." she grunted as she pushed to sit up. Abby moved to help her. "I was. I mean...it was about what happened."

"Are you starting to remember more of it?"

"Maybe," she replied with a sigh. "Unfortunately not anything that'll help us find Tony and McGee. Oh..." Ellie's fingers pressed her temple as she hissed.

"Oh gosh. Let me get your meds," Abby offered as she stood and went to her desk. She returned with a bottle of water and Ellie's prescription. "That knock to the head must be killing you."

"Thanks, Abby," Ellie said as she took them from her. "And yes."

"I wonder what you hit it on. Maybe a rock in the river bed? Lucky you didn't crack your skull."

"Yeah. Super lucky," she said, trailing off. "I take it Gibbs hasn't found any leads?"

"He's working on it. We're hoping Ducky can find something on the sergeant that might help."

"Something tells me he won't," Ellie replied sadly.

"What do you mean?"

"We hypothesized that the reason the perp didn't just...leave Sgt Markus in the river was so that they could remove whatever evidence could point to them."

"Like...a bullet?" Abby questioned. "Well that's...stupid."

"What?"

"No, I don't mean your hypothesis. I mean the perp. Removing the bullet is one thing, but toting him around? Not only does that risk being seen, but it provides all kinds of opportunity for other evidence to end up on the body. Hair, sweat...material from the inside of their vehicle. I mean, I once proved Tony was innocent after someone framed him for murder, by testing the little fibers in his trunk carpeting."

"True." She paused in thought for a moment. "They're either really smart, or really stupid. Or both. I'm not sure what that means for Tim and Tony."

"Let's hope they were really stupid..."

*~.~*

"Whaddya got for me, Duck?" Gibbs asked as he entered the morgue.

"Perhaps a lot," the doctor replied. "And perhaps not enough. It seems Sgt Markus was, in fact, shot at the river's edge, fell in, and was retrieved rather quickly from it. The angle he was hit from suggests level ground as opposed to having been shot from the water, which suggests that he was facing away from the river when he was shot from very close, and likely knew his attacker."

"How do you figure he was taken outta the water quickly?" Gibbs asked.

"Mr. Palmer and I were discussing that very notion. The bullet, though now missing, hit the cervical region of his spinal cord right above the C5 vertebrae."

"He would've been paralyzed," Gibbs surmised.

"Precisely. The fact that he didn't drown is evidence in and of itself. Wherever Sgt Markus was in between the river and his home would have held a great deal of his blood. There was very little attempt to stop the bleeding. He would've been dead within an hour."

"Wasn't much time to get him out of the river," he said, his gaze looking off and up in thought. "Water was rushing too hard for the shooter to have caught up with him by jumping in."

"Which suggests that there was someone in the water waiting to move."

"Maybe they were in cahoots with Poseidon," Jimmy said with a snicker. Ducky and Gibbs glared at him, and his smile faded. "Because...he could stand still in...rushing water...?"

"They had a boat," Gibbs said, then turned to head out of autopsy...

*~.~*

"You okay to be working right now, Bishop?" Director Vance asked when he spotted the agent at her desk in the bullpen.

"Yes, sir, I'm fine. Promise," she said with a small grin. "Just sitting here...doing some digging and hoping I might recall more of what happened today so that we can find Agents DiNozzo and McGee."

"Anything I can help you with?" he asked, moving to sit on the edge of her desk.

"I don't think so. Not unless you think another knock to the head would jog my memory."

"That's usually Gibbs' philosophy." He smirked. She smiled back.

"Not after a concussion, Leon," Gibbs said as he strolled into the bullpen. "Bishop, I need a list of the marinas nearest where we parked along the river," he said as he went to his desk and picked up the phone.

"Did Ducky find something?" Vance asked, standing from the edge of the desk.

"A theory," he replied. "Whoever took them wasn't working alone. One of them was on the water."

"On a boat," Bishop surmised, then looked down at her desk with a furrowed brow in thought.

"They'd have docked to move the sergeant," Vance thought aloud. "The marina should have surveillance footage."

"Ya think?" Gibbs replied sarcastically.

"I'll get you the necessary warrants," he told him and headed toward the staircase. Gibbs raised his brows for a moment and hung up the phone.

"Got it, Gibbs," Bishop said. "There's just one. I'll call now."

"No," Gibbs said as he stood. "I'll go there in person." He pulled open his desk drawer to get his badge and gun.

"I'm going with you," Ellie said as she stood, hand over the part of her side that was bandaged up.

"You're supposed to be resting," Gibbs argued.

"I'll rest when we've got the rest of our team back safe," she replied stubbornly. Then she paused. "My gun is water-logged and in for repair. My phone is toast. And my badge is...drying out in Abby's lab."

"All reasons supporting you staying here."

"My presence could actually assist you out there," she argued. "I don't need to go as an agent. I just need to be there. If it's someone at the marina and they're there right now and see me, they'll either panic and run, or try to attack me."

"I'm not using you as bait, Bishop."

"Sometimes that's the only way to catch the big fish," she retorted. Gibbs opened his mouth to argue, but Ellie put up her hand. "There are two good men somewhere out there, hopefully still breathing. Two men whom I've grown to love like brothers," she said as her eyes became wet. "If there's a chance that something as simple as me being in the right place at the right time can get them back, I don't want to throw that away out of concern for my safety. Don't make me do that, Gibbs. We may never have this opportunity again."

Gibbs had always had a hard time saying no when a woman he cared about was crying or near tears. Maybe he was soft. Maybe Ellie was right, though, and his gut seemed to agree with her. He walked to his desk, pulled open a drawer and retrieved his spare pistol before walking back over to his agent.

"Take this," he told her. "And you're wearing a vest. No argument."

"Actually wouldn't have argued," she replied with a smile as she went to her desk with the weapon to retrieve her spare leg holster. "You need to wear one, too. We already know this guy has no problem shooting federal agents..."

*~.~*

The marina was crowded as they walked up toward the manager's office. It had been mostly sunny that day, but dark clouds were moving in. It seemed the owners of the boats were preparing for stormy weather, covering them up and tying them down.

Right before getting to the building, an older man walked out and started toward the closest dock.

"You're gonna have to move her, Parker," he told the man loudly. "Wind starts picking up, that little thing is gonna wreck at this dock."

"Where do I take her?"

"Move on down to lot A9. I'll tell Markus to take your spot for the day if he gets back anytime soon. His boat can handle it."

"Yeah well, if you ask me, he's overcompensating for something," the man said with a grin.

The manager snickered and turned to Gibbs. "Something I can help you with?" he asked.

Gibbs pulled out his badge. "I'm Special Agent Gibbs with NCIS. This is Agent Bishop. We've got a few questions for you."

"Markus in lot A9," Bishop jumped in. "That wouldn't be Sgt Anthony Markus, would it?"

"Yeah," he replied with a tilt of his head. "He go and get himself into trouble? He's only been gone since this morning."

"Did you see him leave?" Gibbs asked.

"No, no. I don't come in until five most days. It's Sunday, so I'm not here until ten. His boat was here last night before I left. Gone when I got here."

"How do you know it was him that took the boat?"

"After hours you need a key to get in the gate," he replied, pointing to the currently opened front gate. Then you need a key to get to the dock at each port. He can only access his port, you see. After hours they're all on lock down. Too many issues in the past. They wanted better security. Willing to pay for the upgrades, I'm willing to put them in."

"So the only people that could've accessed lot A have their boats docked in lot A," Bishop confirmed. Then behind her, a boat engine started up; the one the manager had told the man to move. Ellie was suddenly hit with a memory that made her head swim.

Gibbs turned his head just in time to see her begin to list, and he grabbed her arm. "You okay?"

"He had a boat," she told him, slightly out of breath. "There was a boat in the water. We never noticed it coming up, but I heard it start right after the shots were fired." Her eyes darted back and forth as she thought. "They must've been sitting on the water, waiting... Maybe they came back to do the same thing we were there for. They saw Tony pick up the casing and figured they had no choice."

"We're gonna need your security footage for the last 72 hours," Gibbs told the manager. "And I wanna know if and when the moment Markus's boat shows back up." He handed him his card.

*~.~*

TBC...

 **AN: Sorry, folks. Delays and such. I'm trying!**


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: So sorry at how long this is taking me. I never should've started...lol. Way too much going on irl!**

 ***~.~***

"Tony!" McGee shouted at the unconscious man, lightly slapping his face with the hand that wasn't holding the cloth over Tony's bleeding wound. "Tony, c'mon. Wake up! I need you to wake up!" He was anxious. Afraid. He wasn't sure how long they'd been there.

He'd woken up an hour ago when Tony was shouting for him to do so. Tim's hands had been tied up with the anchor rope, which didn't take too long for him to get out of so that he could assess the situation. They were on a boat. In the middle of Nowhere, Oceanville. The control console had been smashed in, and the hull had been taking on water until Tim resourcefully, albeit temporarily remedied that.

Tony's gunshot wound hadn't hit anything vital as far as Tim could determine, but he was losing blood. There was nothing Tim could use to patch him up, only to try and stop the bleeding until they could be found. But as the hours passed, that looked less and less likely to happen. Not that he didn't have faith in his boss, but there was no way to know where they were; no way to know where to even start looking. Tony was running out of time.

Tim had been trying to get the radio rigged to work, the GPS to give some sort of signal, anything, when Tony had suddenly stopped talking to him. It's then that he'd realized the older man had lost consciousness and was no longer holding onto the cloth.

Abandoning the task, Tim had gone back to his partner and reapplied the cloth and pressure over the wound.

Tim looked up and out over the water for the hundredth time. There was nothing in sight around them. No sounds. No birds. Nothing. Wherever the assailants had dumped them, they must have known it was a rarely traveled area.

Tony's cough drew Tim's attention back to his partner. "Tony?"

"Don't...look so scared, McGee," he told him weakly. "They'll find us."

"I know they will," Tim replied with confidence. "I'm just worried about how long that'll take."

"Well don't," he said, and coughed again. "The guys that left us assumed we'd have sunk by now. You saw to it that we didn't. That's a good job..."

"So we won't drown," Tim said. "But we have no drinkable water, no food, no protection from the sun, and no navigation."

"Guess you better learn to fish," Tony said with a grin, then grunted in pain.

"With what," Tim asked, trying to distract him as he pressed harder over the wound.

"Wires," Tony replied. "Man, haven't you ever watched Gilligan's Island? Or Lost? You gotta be resourceful. Like you were plugging up that hole in the hull earlier."

"That wasn't hard," he said. "They assumed I wouldn't get myself outta the rope. Shoving a waterproof jacket in a hole isn't resourceful."

"Sure it is."

"If I had something to fish with, I'd probably be using it to sew you up."

"Recycling." He coughed again.

"What?"

"You can't get the radio to work. Go strip out the wires."

"They're not hard enough to penetrate skin."

"You never know what you'll find. Maybe you can twist some together so they're strong enough."

McGee let out a breath. "Even if I could, we have no anesthetic. No alcohol. No telling what could happen."

"So I get an infection...that still buys me some time, right? Stop me from bleeding out at least. Can't hold this thing on forever. I do not want to go out like Mr. Orange."

"Assuming they don't come back, I doubt you'll go out like Mr. Orange."

"You know Reservoir Dogs? I'm impressed..." He trailed off with a coughing spell.

"Hey, hey... Just breathe, okay? We're not gonna die. We're gonna be fine. Gibbs is gonna find us. I...I'm gonna go see what I can find, okay? So I need you to stay awake and hold this. Can you do that?"

"I'll do my best...Mr. White," he said with a grin.

"As long as I'm not Mr. Pink."

"Not even Mr. Pink wanted to be Mr. Pink." They both smiled. Then Tony's grin faded. "What do you think happened to Bishop?"

McGee looked down with a furrowed brow. "All I remember is her hitting the boat. I watched her head hit the side. I saw her go into the water. When they pulled us out, I didn't see her anywhere..."

"Maybe she got out," Tony said, feigning optimism.

"Maybe..."

*~.~*

"I'm fine, Ducky," Bishop insisted from her crossed-legged position on the cold table, as the M.E shone a light in her eyes.

"Better safe than sorry, Eleanor," he replied. "Since you insisted on being out of the hospital within hours of admission."

"It was just a concussion with slight amnesia...which is no longer even a factor, so just a concussion," she stated.

"How is she, Duck?" Gibbs asked as he strolled into autopsy, doors hissing closed behind him.

"Stubborn and impatient," Ducky replied, turning off the light and glancing to his friend. "Health-wise, however, she seems to be satisfactory for the time being."

"Great," Bishop said before hopping off of the table. "Because I need to check in on Abby; see if she's found anything off the surveillance tapes."

"Just came from there," Gibbs said, causing her to pause in her steps and turn around to face him again. "Markus's boat last left port with Markus. Whoever took it, it wasn't from the dock."

"Which means he was probably hi-jacked," Bishop replied in thought. "But he was found in his apartment."

"He was shot at the water," he reminded her. "Then brought back to the apartment."

"But why? That's the one thing that doesn't make any sense out of all of it."

"Perhaps there was something in the apartment they needed after all," Ducky chimed in. "Something that might've been overlooked. Small but important."

"You profile Markus?" Gibbs asked the older man.

"I dug into his background a bit, but didn't find anything useful. Nothing except, of course..." His sentence trailed off for a moment as he grew thoughtful, then turned to his computer. "His social media account had mentions of some sort of trip," he told them. Bishop and Gibbs moved to look at the screen as he pulled up the information in question. "Mr. Palmer found it, so I'll need to look for a moment. Luckily he left the page open."

"There," Bishop pointed. "He was planning a trip to Mexico. He was planning to go by sea."

"To bring medical supplies to Veracruz which would then be transported to Oaxaca," Ducky added. "It was a charity trip, Jethro. Oaxaca is the poorest city in Mexico. There's no official records of these plans because Sgt. Markus was doing this himself."

"Why would someone kill Markus and take his boat over something like this?" Bishop asked.

"Maybe he was taking more than medical supplies," Gibbs thought aloud. "Someone got greedy."

"If this is about drugs...Tony and Tim are already dead..." Bishop said as her eyes darted back and forth in thought.

Gibbs' phone rang in his pocket then, the moment broken. "Yeah," he answered. Bishop watched her boss's eyes as they changed, giving clues that something had happened. "Yeah. Good. We're on our way. Nobody talks to them until we get there!" He hung up the phone and started out the door, Bishop hot on his trail.

"What happened?" she asked.

"They found Markus's boat. They've got two men in custody..."

*~.~*

 **AN: Yeah it's kinda on the short side. My bad. Ugh.**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Took a lot longer this time, I know. One more chapter to go. I was gonna attempt to finish it here but I'm not gonna make it LOL. Figured I'd give you at least something to hold you over...**

 ***~.~***

They were kids. Practically kids, anyway. Young and stupid and there had to be someone else behind the scheme, Gibbs figured. They could catch a major drug trafficker if they played their cards right, but right now what Gibbs wanted most was to find his agents. Hopefully alive. Putting away the sergeant's killer and a drug dealer...well that was definitely important too, but Gibbs planned on handing the case over to the DEA as soon as he got what he needed from the two boys barely out of their teens sitting across from him.

One of them looked angry. The other scared. Gibbs could work with that.

He slid an open file folder toward them on the table. "You have a boat you kept at the same marina as Sgt. Markus," he began. "Where is it now?"

"We don't know," the angry one answered, the scared one glancing briefly over at him before looking back down at the table top.

"You hijacked Markus's boat while both of you were out on the water," Gibbs continued. "You shot him-"

"That wasn't us!" The scared one replied. The angry one kicked his foot.

"Who did it then?" Gibbs asked calmly. The scared one clamped his mouth shut and looked back down at the table. "Thing I don't understand is why you took him back to his place," Gibbs said. "You needed his boat. I get that. There was nothing taken from the apartment..."

"He asked us to," the scared one told him.

"Shut up, man!" the angry one yelled. "Look," he said, turning to Gibbs again. "We didn't shoot the guy, okay? But the dude begged us not to leave his body in the water. He didn't want his family not to be able to bury him or some shit. So Joey here insisted we at least do that, and look where it got us!" he said turning to Joey again. "You think they'd have known anything was going on if they hadn't found his ass in that place?"

"I'm glad they did!" Joey replied. "I didn't sign up for killin' nobody!"

"You signed up to traffic drugs out of the country," Gibbs interrupted. "You think that's a victimless crime?"

"We just needed the money, man," Joey replied.

"Bad enough that an innocent man needed to die? A man who served this country and was about to take a medical supply donation to needy, sick people who needed it?"

"We were gonna take it there for him still," Joey said.

"Yeah, Mac figured it was the perfect cover," the angry one stated.

"Mac?" Gibbs asked. The kid closed his eyes and squared his jaw. "That the man that hired you?"

"The one that shot that guy and all those agents," Joey supplied. "It was all him, man. We were just gonna try and get Markus to let us help him with the delivery; sneak that stuff onto the boat with it and no one would know."

"But Markus got wise on us," angry kid cut in. "He pulled the boat over and demanded we get out. Mac isn't very patient..."

"It all happened so fast," Joey said. "He just shoved Markus back into the boat and told us to deal with it or we'd be next..."

"Next thing we know, Mac is telling us we gotta go police his brass before we take off for Mexico. Swear to God we didn't know there'd be Feds there already. We were still on the boat. Mac...well we had no idea he was even there. Probably settin' us up... Joey flipped and wanted me to turn the boat around, but I wasn't about to give up the job. I thought I'd be able to grab the casing before they could find it." 

"We floated in silent," Joey took over. "And before we could think anything else there were shots ringing out and those Feds started falling backward into the water. Mac insisted we fish them out and get rid of them since it was all our fault..."

"One of them never came back up. So we just grabbed the two dudes and took off..."

"Where did you take them?" Gibbs asked, trying not to allow his impatience to show through.

"Yo we want a deal, man," angry kid said.

"What're you doing?" Joey shouted at his friend.

"You can't even handle this room, Joey, how you gonna handle prison, huh?"

"Tell me where they are," Gibbs said, "And if they're alive when we find them, I won't press charges."

They both looked at him for a long moment. "What if they're not alive?" The angry one asked.

Gibbs leaned forward and looked him in the eyes. "Were they when you left them?"

"Mac wanted us to finish 'em off, but nah, man, we just tied them to the boat. Shot a few holes in the hull. Figured it'd sink eventually."

"That or bleed out," Joey added.

Gibbs slammed a hand down on the table, fed up. "Where did you leave them?"

"They might not be there anymore!" Joey replied, frightened. "Not above water anyway..."

"I can give you coordinates, but that's it, man. If I could tell you more I would!" The angry kid took the pencil Gibbs had in the middle of the table and started writing out the numbers.

"You better pray I find them," Gibbs said as he took the notebook back. "Because accessories to murdering federal agents aren't known for the best treatment from the warden." He stood and made his way to the door, opening it and letting in the two DEA agents who'd been waiting on the other side. "They're all yours."

"Hey! You said you wouldn't press charges!"

"I said _I_ wouldn't. Not that _they_ wouldn't," Gibbs said as he walked away...

*~.~*


	6. Chapter 6

**First off, I need to apologize for how long it took me to summon the will to write this last chapter. I won't bore you with details...**

 **Secondly, I just randomly suddenly got the urge to write, which hasn't happened in forever. So I guess this is a big thank you to everyone who helped my gofundme campaign for my daughter!**

 **Lastly, (and I add this after writing) it seems like this won't be the last chapter after all. In the spirit of the shorter chapters preceding this one, I felt like I should split this final chapter into two pieces. I'm working on the rest now...Don't worry lol**

 ***~.~***

"When I said I wanted to work on my tan, this isn't what I meant," Tony said weakly as Tim tightened the new bandage around his partner's middle. The bandage, of course, being their tee shirts McGee ripped up into strips.

Tony was struggling, Tim could see it through the facade the older man was trying to brave for his sake. There was so much blood on the deck, he couldn't believe there was any left keeping him alive.

"Gibbs is taking forever," Tony said.

"It's only been a few hours." McGee had decided to play along with the banter since the get-go, as long as it kept Tony calm and alive. "Quit whining."

"It's been exactly six hours and seven minutes, McTardy," he replied, holding up his wrist and pointing to his watch. "Waterproof," he said with a grin.

"He'll find us," Tim shot back. "You know he will."

"Yes I do," he replied. "Question is, will he be too late?" He motioned for Tim to turn around.

McGee twisted from where he knelt next to Tony on the deck to see water slowly creeping up. The jacket fix could only do so much, and they were already on borrowed time...

*~.~*

"What's the word on that airbus?" Gibbs yelled over the engine of the boat as they sped across the water in the direction of the coordinates given to them.

"Ten minutes out, Jethro!" Ducky replied. "We should beat them to it!"

"You see anything yet?" he yelled to Bishop who stood beside him trying to steady the binoculars on the rough water.

"I ca...I can't really..." she spoke with frustration as she tried to focus on any given part of the water for longer than a moment. "Wait... Wait I think there's something there!" she shouted and handed the binoculars over to Gibbs as she pointed. Gibbs looked through in the direction she'd indicated. "The boat seems smaller than I'd imagined!" she stated.

"It's not smaller," he replied. "It's sinking..."

*~.~*

"AGGHHHH!" Tony roared as pain shot through him like lightning. Tim was pulling him up, and Tony could do little to assist.

"Sorry, Tony, but we've gotta stay outta the water as long as we can!" They were moving to the top of the cabin, Tony grunting all the way, attempting to push a bit with his legs to no avail but more pain.

"McGee... McGee, stop," he said with as much strength as he could muster. The world around him was getting fuzzy, and it was hard to breathe. He knew what it meant. "McGee!" he said again. "Stop!"

"We have to get up here!" Tim fought.

"You need to just leave me," Tony told him. "Just leave me, man. I'm as good as dead anyway."

"I'm not leaving you."

"You need to start swimming out before my blood hits the water. Sharks will have a field day."

"Shar... Tony, I'm not leaving you here!" McGee shouted with incredulity. "Gibbs will be here soon! You hear me?" But there was no reply. Tony was limp in his arms where he'd been dragging him under his shoulders. He stopped then, setting him down easy to sit up against the cabin's outer wall and get a look at his face. "Tony!" He lightly slapped the man's face. "No... No no no..." His fingers shakily shot out to Tony's neck in desperate search for a pulse. It was there. Just barely. And for the first time since he woke up on that boat, there was no one to around that he needed a brave face for.

He was terrified. His best friend was bleeding out in front of him and the water was closing in all around them. Tears swelled in his eyes. Once the boat was completely under, he wouldn't be able to keep Tony above water unconscious for long. All he'd had to do was keep Tony alive until Gibbs got there. That was all he had been thinking since the start. He was going to fail.

"No!" he shouted, tears spilling down his cheeks as he pushed himself up again. He grabbed Tony under the arms again and used all of his strength to pull him onto the roof of the cabin. His heart was beating so hard, the sound of blood rushing was the only thing he was able to hear...

*~.~*

As they grew closer, Gibbs watched as McGee pulled Tony back against his chest on the roof. Tony's eyes were closed. Tim was clinging to him around his torso, his hand firm against bloody remnants of cloth. Gibbs couldn't tell if he was rocking, or if it was just the motion of the sinking vessel beneath them. Either way, Tim hadn't spotted them yet. He should at least hear the engine.

"Tim!" Bishop shouted, leaning over the side as if the extra few feet would make a difference. "Tim!" Slowly his head began to turn in their direction. The boat pulled up in time to see the realization on his face. Gibbs didn't miss the bloodshot eyes of the younger man and the shaking. He must be cold. The sun had started to go down, and they were both soaked to the bone.

The boat could only get so close to the one sinking. They threw a life preserver out as close to Tim as they could. Gibbs slid into the water so he could help guide them, Ducky preparing himself to help them back in. Bishop could hear the helicopter in the distance. They'd be there soon. She just wished she could go help her team instead of just waiting on the boat.

"C'mon, McGee!" Gibbs shouted as he stood on some sunken part of the boat so that he could reach out. "Hand him over, then grab onto the preserver!" Tim looked hesitant, glancing back and forth between his boss and his unconscious partner. "Tim!" Gibbs' stern voice snapped him out of it.

"Boss, he's not doing well..."

"Chopper's on its way. Ya hear it?" he asked, trying to calm the agent he realized might be in shock.

Tim looked up into the sky for a moment. "Yeah. Yeah I hear it!"

"Good! That's good, Tim!" Gibbs encouraged him. "Now let's get Tony over here so they can get him up there easier, okay?"

Tim swallowed, then nodded and started moving forward, carefully moving Tony with him. The two of them were able to hoist Tony up high enough for the skipper and Ducky to pull him into the boat, Ducky immediately positioning Tony to examine him as the skipper helped McGee and Gibbs out of the water.

Time began to blur for Tim then. He remembered looking at his lifeless friend as Ducky checked his vitals. Then a hand on his shoulder made him turn. "Ellie?" he said in surprise. Her eyes were as red and wet as his before she embraced him. "We didn't know if you'd made it..." The chopper was almost on top of them now, the noise making it difficult to hear anything else.

The litter was suddenly in front of them, Ducky and Gibbs scrambling to get Tony secured into it as the airbus hovered as still as it could manage. The only thing Tim heard before they started lifting him up was Ducky yell to the medic, "He's stopped breathing!"

Fresh tears filled Tim's eyes. Another blur of time, skipping ahead a number of seconds he wasn't certain, but the litter was gone as well as the M.E. Gibbs was standing in front of him with a look of concern on his face.

"I'm sorry," Tim told him, his voice breaking right along with the rest of him. "I'm so sorry..." The tears streamed down his face once more.

Gibbs' furrowed his brows and shook his head, the ache in his chest that had been there since Bishop's car had screeched to a halt beside him that morning hadn't subsided, and seeing the state of his rescued agents had brought the oddest mixture of relief and sorrow. "This wasn't your fault," he told the younger agent, stepping closer to him.

"I tried, boss, I swear," he continued. "But there was so much blood. I couldn't... I tried to stop it..." He couldn't go on, sobs wracking his body for what he was sure was grief from the loss of his partner.

Gibbs shook his head again, grabbing the agent into his arms, unable to just stand there and watch him melt down. "DiNozzo's gonna be okay," he told him. "They're gonna help him. He's gonna be fine. You did good, Tim." He vowed this, of course, not sure of what would actually happen in reality, but for the sake of the two distraught agents beside him, looking to him—of all people—for comfort. McGee hadn't replied, though, and his sobs had turned into slight hyperventilation. Gibbs realized how cold the agent was at that moment. He pushed the man into the seat, not letting him go as he sat down beside him.

"Ellie, grab that kit," he gestured to the red box under the seat across from him.

She knew exactly what to do, quickly grabbing the plastic box and flipping it open to rummage for an emergency blanket. She tore it from its plastic package and shook it open, wrapping it around McGee as best she could, then sitting on the other side of him. She stayed close, flush to his side, and wrapped him in a hug that was meant both to comfort and to warm. She closed her eyes as the wind hit her face, the boat speeding back to shore. She felt a hand on her head and opened them to see Gibbs looking worriedly at her. She gave a small smile and nod. His hand moved to squeeze the back of her neck for a moment. He understood. The worry they felt for both teammates blanketed the relief of finding them alive...

*~.~*


	7. Suddenly the Final Chapter!

_It was dark. Cold. Silent._

 _The only sound was kin to a breeze. The smell...he couldn't make out what it was. He opened his eyes. It was pitch black, but for tiny blurs of white that he soon came to realize were stars. He felt dizzy._

 _He could tell he was on his back and he rolled his head to one side._

 _Water._

 _It had been a dream. Gibbs never found them. Night was here. Tony was..._

" _Tony?" he shot up to sit, tipping from the broken piece of boat frame he'd been floating on and falling into the cold water. There was nothing else around him. Nothing at all. "Tony!" he yelled out. Something caught his eye below him and he looked._

 _He was sinking. Tony was sinking. He must've let go of him by accident when he'd fallen asleep. "No!" he shouted and dove under the water to go after him. Tony's eyes were open, but Tim could tell he was still unconscious. He was even paler than before, his ever-sinking body lit up by the moonlight rays through the water._

 _Tim swam harder, faster toward Tony, his arm trying to reach out to grab onto him, but it seemed the harder he swam, the faster Tony sank..._

*~.~*

Ellie sat cross-legged on the empty hospital bed beside McGee, biting her pointer fingernail as she was lost in thought. Tim was asleep, hooked up to an IV and monitors. The beeping from the machines was almost hypnotic, Bishop thought, and the exhaustion from the chaotic day was finally catching up with her.

Gibbs had been back and forth between checking on him and Tony. Sometimes when he came to McGee's room he had himself a fresh cup of coffee and one for Ellie. The man refused to stand still for long. It's not that Bishop hadn't seen him like this before, but usually it was an anger thing, and this was clearly worry. She'd try and calm him down if it wasn't such a typical pot calling the kettle black. Of course, her worry was indicate through her eating her nails instead of twelve bags of cheese curls.

She was pulled from her thoughts when the monitor beeping changed. Her gaze traveled to the screen. Tim's heart rate had gone up a bit. Nothing too drastic, but a change nonetheless. She looked at her friend's face for signs of distress, but saw none just yet.

Within moments, however, the beeping got faster, and Tim's face was twitching, his head moving slightly side to side. Bishop hopped off of the other bed and came to his side. It was then that she realized he wasn't breathing.

"Tim!" she shouted and took his face in her hands. "Wake up!" The desperation in her voice must have gotten through to him because his eyes shot open then, and she had to place firm hands on his shoulders to keep him from jumping out of the bed.

"Where am I?" he asked, out of breath. "H-how did I get here?"

"You're in the hospital," Ellie told him with a look of concern. "You don't remember the ride here?"

"I..." Tim's gaze drifted for a moment in the air in front of him.

Gibbs had approached the room a moment earlier, and decided to wait outside the door to give the agent a moment, but it didn't stop him from listening to the conversation.

"I remember it was dark," he said a bit quietly, still looking at nothing in particular. "I remember...Tony!" His eyes widened with the realization. "I lost him!" his voice broke.

"No," Ellie shook her head and tried to explain.

"I fell asleep and I dropped him and he was sinking...but I couldn't get him. I tried! I tried to get to him, but he was sinking so fast, and-"

"You didn't drop him, Tim," Gibbs said, choosing that moment to enter the room. Ellie was grateful. Tim looked up to meet his boss's eyes. "You never let go of him," he continued. "You were still holding onto him when we found you. You're the reason he's still alive, McGee."

"Tony's...alive?"

"He's in recovery," he explained. "Still unconscious. He was in hypovolemic shock and needed an emergency blood transfusion and they closed up the gunshot wound. They say he should make a full recovery."

"Should?" Ellie chimed in.

"He hasn't woken up yet," Gibbs reminded her. "The amount of blood he lost...well they'll need to do a full neurological examination to check for any damage."

"Brain damage..." she grimly elaborated.

"He's gonna be okay, Bishop," Gibbs stated firmly, conviction clear in his voice. He turned his gaze back to McGee. "How about you?" he asked. "That must've been some nightmare."

Tim let out a breath. Gibbs knew everything. How did Gibbs always know everything?

"I'm...okay," he replied, and he stopped to consider the question a bit more. He hadn't really been concerned with himself at all during the whole thing. Suddenly an ache on the side of his head made itself known, and he raised a hand to touch the sore spot.

"Duck said it looked like you were clocked with the butt of a pistol," Gibbs told him.

"Yeah," he replied in a breath as he recalled being pulled out of the water. All he could see was Tony curled in on himself, soaking with water and blood as a man tied his hands. Then a sharp pain in his head. Then nothing... "I only saw one of them," he told his boss.

"We got 'em. Nothin' to worry about except you and Tony."

"Yeah," Ellie said. "You were dehydrated, so they have you on fluids."

"Can I see him?" Tim asked. "I know he's unconscious and you said he'll probably be fine, but my brain is kinda in need of a visual confirmation..."

*~.~*

He'd tried to insist on not needing a wheelchair, but hospital policy was that he be in one while he was in their care. In reality he was grateful, even if he was embarrassed. His body was exhausted.

As Gibbs pushed the chair over the threshold into Tony's room, the first thing he noticed was that the color was back in his teammate's face. It was comforting to see, especially after the nightmare. "He looks a lot better," he said aloud.

"Definitely an improvement."

Tim got a silly grin on his face. "Not to mention he looks like such a little angel when he's sleeping." Gibbs smirked at that.

"Who you callin' little, McMunchkin?" Tony's weak voice surprised the hell out of them both.

Tim tried to hide his surprise with a comeback. "We're exactly the same height, Tony."

"My very special agent status makes me ten feet tall, probie. Don't be jelly."

Gibbs shook his head. "Good to see you awake, DiNozzo."

"I wasn't sleeping," he insisted. "It was the blood loss. You know how the body shuts certain things down in an emergency."

"Like the brain," Tim said.

"Shut up."

"I think yours just might be okay after all," Gibbs said.

"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, boss."

"Think I'll go get the doc so they can make sure," he said as he turned toward the door.

"Hey, if it's not, at least I've still got my looks!" he shouted after him.

Gibbs and Tony grinned, as did Ellie as she stood in the doorway...

~Fin~


End file.
